


The mask that you wore

by rosa_himmelblau



Series: The Roadhouse Blues [37]
Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:08:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26109958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: Sonny goes home.
Series: The Roadhouse Blues [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1069713





	The mask that you wore

Across the aisle, a woman was telling her husband how much she loved him for buying first-class tickets. Her voice was as full of bubbles as the free champagne, and she'd said the same thing a dozen times since they'd got on the plane. Sonny could only imagine how often she'd said it before that. Right about now, the husband was probably wishing he'd bought coach.

Sonny looked out the window with no idea what he was looking at. Some clouds, some lights on the ground. He couldn't recognize any of it, not from the air, not if he'd been on the ground; it was all the middle of nowhere, some place where there was no water.

How did people stand it, living where there was no water to look at? How could people like that have futures? Where did they keep them? Where did they go to look at them? Sonny had tried looking at their flat, flat land, he'd tried looking at their mountains, he'd tried looking at their stupid little lakes you could see clear across. But there was nothing on the other side of any of those things, not the mountains you couldn't see over, and not the flat land that should have been like the ocean, the way it just disappeared into the horizon, but it wasn't. It was just land. And the lakes were pathetic, you could walk around them, there was nothing endless about any of them. They weren't big enough.

Terranova had surprised him. He hadn't come along just because Sonny told him to put on his shoes; he'd wanted answers. Maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise; he'd been feeling better lately. But there was no reason to think it would last, and Sonny didn't know what else to do for him. And he couldn't drag him onto an airplane, sobbing and babbling about how he wanted to die. If Sonny was going to do it, it had to be now.

Anyway, he'd prepared for Terranova's maybe asking, with a story he knew would keep him from asking any more questions. Just the suggestion that Sonny might have to dust some lowlife was enough to spook Terranova, and that kept him quiet on the trip east.

Sonny'd gotten a kick out of the shocked look on Terranova's face when he checked them into that fleabag in Coney Island. It was a risk, choosing that hotel; he had no good reason for choosing it, except that it was on the beach. He had no good reason to check into a hotel at all, since he knew he'd be on a plane out in twelve hours, but he had to keep up the illusion they'd be there overnight.

But Terranova didn't ask. Maybe he thought it had something to do with the imaginary guy Sonny was there to meet.

McPike hadn't surprised him, except for not knowing Terranova was safe and sound.

Well, safe, anyway.

But that Aiuppo hadn't told McPike a thing, not about getting Terranova back, not about his condition, nothing—that really surprised Sonny. It didn't make any sense, but Sonny was starting to think it wasn't just Terranova who had a screw loose; his whole family was cracked. And there was no percentage in trying to figure out what was going on inside a crazy person's head. Sonny knew that from experience.

There was no question McPike wanted Terranova back, anyway. If things had been different, it would've been funny; McPike had practically been vibrating with frustration. And he'd been so fixated on waiting for Vinnie to show, he hadn't even noticed Sonny hadn't taken the elevator back down, hadn't left after their little talk.

That might have been risky, but it was the only way Sonny could figure to do it. No way was he going to all the trouble of getting himself to that observation deck without spending some time looking at his city. The timing had been tricky, what with meeting McPike, but being gone before Terranova could find him there. And it wasn't as though he could hang around afterwards, hoping McPike was too grateful to bust him. Once Terranova got there, all bets were off.

Sonny watched McPike drag Terranova onto the elevator, probably so they could have their teary reunion scene someplace more private. Sonny could've told him not to take those tears too personally; Vinnie cried over nothing sometimes.

Or maybe it was McPike he'd been crying over all those times he'd told Sonny he didn't know what was wrong. What difference did it make now? McPike could keep him supplied with kleenex. What Sonny had to worry about was how long he had to enjoy his view before McPike—and maybe Terranova?—came back to bust him. He knew he couldn't come back later; for all Sonny knew, he'd come back to find the whole place crawling with cops.

But Sonny figured he still had a little time, and he was damned if he'd give up these last moments with his city, his ocean. So he walked around the observation deck a couple more times. The day had started to clear up some, and there was more of his view to be seen.

Sonny could never decide which view he loved best. They were all so seductive, he could stand there for hours and look at the infinite promise they held. This was one of the most public, most famous, buildings in the world, but when Sonny was standing on the observation deck, it was his private spot. And not one of those stupid tourists looking through the binoculars could see as far as he did.

Sonny walked away from his building, away from Vinnie, and got into a cab. His flight didn't leave until seven ten; he had plenty of time to have a nice dinner at a place he used to go, back in the day. He was kind of hoping the same waitress would be there, the one who'd always remembered he liked his Glenlivet with lots of ice, that he liked—

She was a good waitress, pretty, she smiled a lot. Sonny tried to remember what her name was, but his mind was blank. _Dammit, I used to be good at that, I knew the names and personal information of everybody who worked for me, of everybody I saw on a daily, or even weekly—hell, monthly basis!_

_Yeah, so? Why should I remember the name of some waitress I haven't seen in five years? Doesn't mean my memory's slipping, it just means I don't need to remember, so I don't._

She wasn't there anyway. The place was under new management, and the food was only so-so. Didn't really matter because Sonny wasn't hungry anyway.

Sonny had more scotch on the plane, half-flirting with the stewardesses. He thought about taking one home, but he was having a little trouble remembering why he'd want to bother. He wasn't in the mood to play that game; he was tired and he just wanted to go to bed.

_Aiuppo'll be happy, anyhow. Sure, who else would fucking **Don Rafael Aiuppo** want to look after his son but an OCB field director? He can have 'em over every week for Sunday dinner. Let Terranova be somebody else's problem for a change. Aiuppo should've called McPike in the first damn place; he was McPike's problem, wasn't he? McPike was the one who let him get grabbed, let him get broken—_

_I can get my life back._

"Would you care for another drink, sir?" Tiffany, her name was, and she had lots of blonde hair, pulled back in a braid that let little wisps come loose and make a halo around her head, like—Raphael? Were those Raphael's angels? Sonny couldn't remember. Vinnie might know—it was hard telling what he'd know, he knew a lot of useless stuff. And he'd be able to tell if the color was real; he said he could tell by the way it felt. Sonny didn't care. Blondes weren't his thing anyway.

"Yeah, sure, gimme another scotch."

Tiffany smiled at him, opened up another little bottle.

Sonny decided to make it the last one he had until he got back to his apartment.


End file.
